The Doha Round has failed, according the former US Trade Representative Susan Schwab. This essay argues that prolonging Doha jeopardises the multilateral trading system and threatens future prospects for WTO-led liberalisation. Negotiators should salvage whatever partial agreements they can from Doha, and quickly drop the rest to ensure the December ministerial meeting focuses on future work plans rather than recriminations over Doha.

World leaders must make important decisions concerning the future of the Doha Round for the 31 May 2011 meeting of the WTO membership. This essay introduces the issues and summarises contributors’ suggestions for “Next Steps”. It argues that the best outcome would be for WTO members to agree to work towards a small package of deliverables for December 2011 and push the rest of the agenda items into the future – perhaps with specific instructions for changing the basic negotiating protocols used to date.

Peter Sutherland talks to Viv Davies about the final report of the high-level trade experts group, published this week, on 'World Trade and the Doha Round'. The report traces the imminent failure of the Doha Round back to what the authors consider to be "a deficit of political leadership"; they also make the case for why the WTO matters. The interview was recorded in London on 24 May 2011. [Also read the transcript.]

This VoxEU eBook aims to inform options for resolving the Doha Round dilemma by gathering the views of some of the world’s most experienced Doha experts. All agree that moving past the crisis will require creative thinking about work-around solutions that avoid acrimony and lock in some of the progress to date.

After 10 years of much progress and much frustration with the Doha Round, it is time to find a new approach to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion. This essay argues that success would require four things implemented simultaneously: i) a Doha down-payment package agreed this year, ii) an understanding of how to reorganise continuing talks on the most contentious issues, iii) commencement of a WTO work programme on 21st-century trade issues, and iv) a bold initiative by middle power WTO members to try to unblock the talks.

Hopes for finishing Doha in 2011 are fading fast. This essay suggests a three-track approach for moving beyond the Doha crisis. 1) Identify a package of “deliverables’ – parts of the Round that could be agreed by December 2011. 2) Assemble a package of contentious issues for ongoing negotiation with clear terms of reference. 3) Establish a work programme to consider WTO institutional reform and forward-looking issues.

Doha is deadlocked. This essay argues that the options are: i) to declare the negotiations dead, ii) to suspend them until after the US elections, or iii) to negotiate an early-harvest agreement for the end of this year. The author strongly believes that the early harvest is worth the extra efforts – for both the WTO and the world’s poorest.

The core Doha goals – better market access and rules for agricultural, industrial, and services trade – still matter, but Doha is a ship run aground. This essay argues that the choices are: i) to abandon ship and try with a new ship later, or ii) to patch up the holes by delivering some progress in December 2011 and then wait for a high tide to carry us off the rocks. Only the latter is likely to achieve the core goals.

The Doha Round is stuck. This essay argues that finishing Doha would be best, but if this is impossible, we should admit it and move on. Investing more resources and credibility in a failure would only damage the WTO and multilateral cooperation. Leaders should turn their energies towards building an agenda for the WTO’s future work that responds to 21st century interests. Getting this right is critical; the WTO cannot afford another failure if Doha dies. An early harvest is an excellent idea, but only if it can be done quickly.

With the Doha Round on the brink of failure, the blame game is moving into high gear. This column argues that the political perception of China’s export competitiveness and its exchange-rate policy are a real problem. In effect, the whole basis for exchanging trade policy concessions is being undermined because a de facto trade policy instrument – the exchange rate – is seen as nullifying these concessions while remaining beyond the scope of multilateral negotiations and discipline.

US trade policy is moving again as major decisions are being made this month on both bilateral FTAs and multilateral negotiations at the WTO known as the Doha Round. This column argues a conclusion of the Doha Round would be useful but notes that if Doha comes off the rail, the US has other options. In particular, the bilateral FTAs and the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks with Asia-Pacific nations. These non-WTO agreements enjoy very strong US constituencies whereas Doha enjoys very few.

Is the Doha Round dead? This column argues that it is perilously close and that the biggest reason for this is one large member, i.e. the US. But it adds that emerging economies could do more to save the trade discussions.

Multilateral trade talks known as the Doha Round are on the edge of a failure that would have unpredictable but potentially dire consequences for global cooperation. This column – written by India’s ex-WTO Ambassador – suggests a way out of the crisis. World leaders should turn their attention to salvaging Doha by segregating the most contentious issues for continuing consultation, finalising stand-alone agreements in the less contentious areas, and initiating a work programme on WTO institutional reform.

The WTO ‘dodged the bullet’ last week when members agreed to continue working on the deadlock holding up the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. This column surveys the existing econometric evidence on the trade effect of WTO membership. It also presents new evidence that membership raises the range of goods that members export – increasing it by an estimated 42%. The authors conjecture that the WTO boosts trade by reducing uncertainty in the mind of potential exporters regarding the evolution of international trade rules.

If the Doha deadlock is to be broken this year, US and Chinese leaders must find more room for compromise by loosening their domestic political constrains. To do this, they must challenge the premise on which the deadlock is based – the view held by special interest groups that Doha is mostly about tariff cuts. These narrow special interests should not be allowed to jeopardise the world trading system and the benefits Doha would bring to all nations. This is critical; the eBook argues that if Doha fails this year, it can’t be done before 2020.

This column summarises the arguments in the latest eBook. If the Doha deadlock is to be broken this year, US and Chinese leaders must find more room for compromise by loosening their domestic political constrains. To do this, they must challenge the premise on which the deadlock is based – the view held by special interest groups that Doha is mostly about tariff cuts. These narrow special interests should not be allowed to jeopardise the world trading system and the benefits Doha would bring to all nations. This is critical; the eBook argues that if Doha fails this year, it can’t be done before 2020.

Why should policymakers bother to conclude the Doha Round? This column argues that the benefits for agricultural trade provide reason enough. Developed countries would benefit from more competitive products entering their market and developing countries would benefit from having access to these markets for export.

The Doha Round is in peril. This essay argues that if the impasse is intractable, world leaders face three choices: to quickly finish the low-ambition package on the table, to explicitly terminate the Doha Round, or to let it die a slow death. It says the last option would be by far the worst – even if it is the most likely.

The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) has made very little progress in ten years. If it fails to be completed, the impact on world trade and the global economy could potentially be very damaging, with serious implications for the credibility and future of the WTO. Many commentators suggest that the Doha Round is dying of political neglect and that its revival requires the immediate intervention and committed support of G20 leaders; others argue that gaining such support at this very late stage is unrealistic. CEPR held a high-level trade seminar in London on 14th April to discuss the issue.

If trade diplomats thought they knew one thing, it was how to cut industrial tariffs. Yet the Doha deadlock rests squarely on the inability to compromise on industrial tariff cuts. This column says that the arguments made for higher levels of ambition don't stand up to much scrutiny and should not be allowed to provide a basis for a continuing impasse.